The Story…
This past weekend was an exciting one at the Simpson household! With two young and active kids in Cole and Aubrey, the amount of laundry facing us each week seemed to be growing at an exponential level. My wife and I had been saving up for over a year to purchase a new washer and dryer. Our initial thinking was to wait until the Black Friday sales coming up this fall (I am always on the lookout for great deals!) Unfortunately, our washing machine had different plans. In an almost poetic whimper a week and half ago, our washing machine finally succumbed to the endless stream of grass stained pants and spaghetti covered shirts. It was done.
Heading to a nearby store, we found a great deal on a new high efficiency Samsung washer and dryer. The size of the the tub in the washing machine was huge! I wasn’t even sure if we had enough clothes to fit inside of it! Delivery was scheduled for Friday and the anticipation throughout the week grew! I could hardly wait…my battle I routinely do with laundry was going to be changed forever. The delivery came on Friday and the installers hooked up the washing machine…my life was forever a changing.
I scampered around the house gathering up every piece of dirty laundry! I started my first load in this completely amazing and revolutionary home appliance…squeak…squeak…squeak. Uh? What was that? From the depths of the inside of the washer, a constant and very annoying squeak was occurring. “This can’t be right,” I said in despair as I felt like a toddler who had just dropped his brand new sucker. After running several loads in the next 24 hours, I knew I needed help.
I didn’t call. I didn’t email. I turned to Twitter.
@SamsungSupport just got brand new WA48H7200A and it squeaks. See video! Very annoying! Can you help?
From there, I exchanged in a twitter conversation during the next hour where they walked me through troubleshooting tip after tip. It was very helpful and I never had to be on hold or wait for an email response. The disappointing aspect of this twitter conversation was that nothing helped. My washer was level. The hoses were not rubbing against anything. Samsung was sending me back to the store to order a replacement.
Then on Monday, my phone rang. It was Samsung. The store had notified them of my issue and the person on the phone said she was required to go through a series of trouble shooting steps. Uh? I said I had already done that with that Samsung and nothing worked. She said there was not a record of that and it was a required step in order to get a replacement. I quickly recounted how I had reached out on Twitter and went through the troubleshooting steps. She was confused by what I was talking about…she finally said that their department does not connect with Samsung’s twitter support and the two systems do not talk with to each other. The bottom line was I was still going to have to redo the troubleshooting with her in order to get the replacement.
I did offer a suggestion for her to take to her next team meeting in that their teams should create networks to communicate. Her response, “Honestly Sir, you are the first person that has ever told me you have used Twitter to get support from Samsung.”
The CW Connection…
This story made me reflect on what we need to do for our students. Although Samsung had things in place to meet the needs of its consumers, the systems weren’t really prepared to meet customers with where they were at in terms of comfort level in getting help. They had a Twitter account to help, but it was not tied to anything official.
Simply stated, Samsung was not fully prepared to meet its customers where they were at with technology.
I think about our own students. I think about my own son who is in kindergarten who can use a MacBook, iPad, and Chromebook.
Our students are coming to us with expectations and experience using technology to personalize their learning…to achieve their individual potential.
I would ask what we can do as educators to make sure we meet the needs of all students where they are at in terms of using technology to enhance and personalize learning. Every student is different with their comfort and experiences with technology, just as I was more comfortable with Twitter then calling an 800 number for help.
I am proud of the work our teachers are engaged into to deepen their own knowledge of how to support and embed technology into the art of their teaching. We are 1:1 with teachers and iPads and I see them learning new ways to innovate every day! Through the passage of the bond, we will be increasing the amount and variety of devices available to our students in the classroom.
I see our teachers going to professional development sessions to learn more about using technology to enhance their instruction.
I see our teachers sharing out resources with each other to learn more about new technology tools.
I see our teachers spending time at “App lunches” learning about new apps for their iPad and how it can enhance the thinking of our students.
I see teachers empowered to meet the needs of our students.
Simply put, we have to! If we aren’t prepared to meet our students where they are at and take their thinking to new levels using technology…we will lose them.
